Tag Archives: mangrove

How To Get Your Research Paper Noticed: Update

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Video abstracts or other visual media can help publicize a scientific article. After creating a mangrove_newphytologist_prezi“visual abstract” for a recent paper on the Prezi platform, we sent the URL to the journal with the suggestion that they might like to link to it. Turns out, they were very interested and within days had featured it on their website (see image at right). The journal has also indicated that they will promote the visual abstract and paper through their social media outlets. This is great news, as having the journal highlight our paper raises its visibility.

The take-home message here is that journals are looking for rich content, and those authors who provide it are rewarded with increased attention.

Even if a journal does not feature video/visual abstracts, authors can still post them online, as I did on the Prezi website (and made the presentation publicly accessible). I was surprised to see that our visual abstract on the Prezi website had over 100 views in just four days (before the journal linked to it).

I also created a video of the visual abstract by recording my computer screen while playing the Prezi slideshow. I uploaded the video to YouTube (see below), which should help broaden its visibility and also provides an alternative to the Prezi slideshow (which does not play well on some viewing platforms).

Enhance Your Science Method Video With a Picture-in-Picture

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As I’ve discussed previously, you want to make your science videos as brief as possible. If you are doing a methods video, include only as much information as necessary for the viewer to understand and no more. However, if you have an opportunity to illustrate some concept or other aspect of your topic that enhances the viewer’s understanding, then you should do so, especially if it does not add to the video length.

I wanted to make a short video to show how we measure salinity in the field. The method is not complicated and so is a good topic for a short video. I already had some footage (shot in a mangrove forest in Belize) in which I briefly explained the principle behind how a refractometer works and then demonstrated its use.

A key piece of information that was not visible during my explanation was the scale that is viewed through the refractometer ocular. To show this, I recreated the scale in PowerPoint and inserted that image into the video as a picture-in-picture during editing (see the last tutorial in this post to see how to do this in iMovie 11). This image appears in the video at the point when I look through the ocular.

Look for similar opportunities to enhance your videos.